Talk:2010–11 Watford F.C. season

Squad details

I've never really been involved in season articles, but it strikes me that we've oppurtunity in an article like this to bolster squad information. While the listing on the main club article is a summary - and rightly so - we could pump up the squad listing here if we were prepared to broaden the parameters. I was posting on a forum the other day where people were talking about the make-up of their squads and while I was typing out a load of stuff it occurred to me that this is the sort of stuff that could be on here. I'm talking age (keep it running on the template until the end of the season, then switch to a "death" template to show a fixed age, probably that at the beginning of the season), date joined (either by year or by month/year), colour code the Academy products, nationality column as well. So a user could look at it and see how a long has been together, how old it is, how home-produced it is (or UK produced) and so forth. There's other stats you could throw in - total appearances for club, or total professional appearances. That might be too many columns, though. Then you could also throw in a see also link above the squad in the main article linking to that section. Thoughts? HornetMike (talk) 02:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Enjoying the hand-based football? I'm guessing a certain ex-Hornet is pretty chuffed! I love a lot of those ideas. Age should definitely go in. Academy and date joined are things I'm very much for, although we would need to define them. For instance, would Loach count as an academy product? And for Jonathan Bond, would we use the year he joined the academy, the year he first made the bench, or the year he turned pro (any of those would be okay, as long as we were consistent).

Nationality I'm less keen on though, because it's something that's prone to interpretation and retrospective change. For example, I literally only just found out (doing a bit of research as a direct result of this question) that Aldred has played for Scotland under-19s. If that were Doyley, it could've involved 12 edits rather than one. Other issues include Soccerbase listing Ireland under-19 international Rob Kiernan as English, questions over whether Mingoia identifies as English or Italian, and the fact that Mariappa may be eligible to play for Fiji.

The see also on the main page I'll do now. I'll hold off on the changes to this article's table while we work out what goes where. —WFC— 03:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

No. = Squad number

Pos = Playing position

P = Number of games played

G = Number of goals scored

= Yellow cards

GK = Goalkeeper

DF = Defender

MF = Midfielder

FW = Forward

= Red cards

Yth = Whether player went through Watford's youth system

Club career = Period that player spent as a Watford first team player

2010–11 Watford player details

No.	Pos	Name	P	G	P	G	P	G	P	G			Age	Club career	Yth	Notes
			Championship		FA Cup		League Cup		Total		Discipline
1	GK	Scott Loach	26	0	0	0	0	0	26	0	1	0	35 years, 354 days	2006–	No	—
2	DF	Lee Hodson	10	0	1	0	1	0	12	0	1	0	32 years, 226 days	2009–	Yes	—

I've copied the key and top of table over, so that we can experiment and discuss, without having to do the work for the entire squad until we've decided on the format. Loach may or may not count as a youth player, but for demonstrative purposes I've said that he isn't. Feel free to treat the table above as a sandbox. —WFC— 19:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Very nice looking! With regard to to the above: Good points about nationality. Although there could be a room for an international call-ups section somewhere?

My recollection is Loach was an academy signing before he signed a professional contract - it's hard to tell from his article, there's a load of refs but they seem to be mixed up a bit. He's certainly called an academy product whenever there's articles about our great academy.

I think that in terms of date joined, if they're a scholar who makes a start/bench we go from that date (with a note saying "x was still a scholar when they first appeared in the first-team squad"), otherwise when they sign a professional contract. There are some issues with that - Murray has been a professional since the start of his scholarship, but that was seemingly just to ward off suitors, and he's still essentially just a scholar (putting aside that one-off unused sub appearance). But unless you want reams of notes, I think that level of detail's fine.

Also, I've chucked in a reserves and academy section to the article. It's a bit hotch-potch, but the information and refs are there to play with. I wanted to do a bit more, but time I did something different this evening, and I was a bit unfamiliar with the coding of the tables! Lewis Young, Jonathan North and Jure Travner need to go into the outs, and in the out loans Henderson to Aldershot, Walker to Northampton, Oshodi to Dagenham and Redbridge, Kiernan to Braford, Aldred to Stockport (also, here's hoping Aldred makes the bench at some point so we can fit him into the squad list!). Also, Lee's departure might be worth mentioning in the background section (I believe he was offered a contract and turned it down) seeing as he was youth and long-serving. And if Gibson and North are mentioned there, Young should be too. Te refs are all out there, but enough trying to penetrate the official site for now! HornetMike (talk) 21:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Last season I made sure to pay attention to international call-ups (here). We should definitely do it again, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. The reserves section looks good. During the season it's just about communicating the facts; IMO perfecting the prose is best left until afterwards (something I still need to do for last season!). Agree with all your other suggestions, and will try to get those done on Thursday. I've added a length of service column above, but can't decide whether the table is getting a little too wide, or whether that's an illusion caused by the fact that I've only done two rows. —WFC— 20:16, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello. Never got round to replying further here - sorry about that. To finally answer your question - no, I don't think it's too wide. Looks good! I think we should stick that format in the article at the end of the season with the last stats update. Thinking about it, I'm inclined to do age at the end of the season, though. A few more things about the table as it stands in the article:

• I don't trust Soccerbase's discipline stats. I saw Lloyd Doyley get booked against Norwich on Tuesday and (mentioned in the match report at BHappy too). Soccerbase doesn't have it.
• The table isn't presently sortable. It currently ranks someone with 4 appearances this season ahead of someone with 39.
• We've got a note for Josh Walker saying he played games for Stevenage, but none for other players we've had out on loan. Think it should probably be restricted to his appearances for Boro prior to joining us. Oh, also, Townsend needs a note saying he was on loan.

Other issues:

• Should Weimann get a note after his "end of season" loan end, stating his season was ended by injury on 25 April?
• Burnley scorers in away match need goal times.
• The BBC refs don't have sending off times. Had to take them off the (presently not linked) official site report for Mariappa/Eustace, presumably someone did the same when they those for opposition sent off against us.

That's all I can remember from the edit I did a couple of days ago/have spotted since. Think there might a couple more things, but alas I can't remember them! Regards, HornetMike (talk) 21:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)